A case study! new IIMs clash with the old

Simmering differences between the seven new IIMs and six older, more established ones are threatening to erupt into a full-blown conflict.

| ET Bureau | Updated: Aug 17, 2012, 09:13 IST

MUMBAI/ AHMEDABAD: Simmering differences between the seven new IIMs and six older, more established ones are threatening to erupt into a full-blown conflict. New IIMs are peeved that their older counterparts are not treating them as equals in resource and faculty sharing, and in the Common Admission Test (CAT) process and revenues. And, at least two new IIMs are planning to write to the human resource development ministry demanding better collaboration and resource utilisation among all institutes.
IIM-Ranchi officials told ET they will approach the ministry with a suggestion to form an 'IIM co-ordination committee' to ensure collaboration between all institutes.

"The bubble will burst if institutes such as IIM-Ahmedabad choose to play elitist and refrain from sharing the best faculty and help improve the productivity of all IIMs," says MJ Xavier, director of IIM-Ranchi. "IIM is an umbrella brand and students should not be seeing any difference in quality...the IIM brand will get wiped out if it doesn't get inclusive." He points to the 10% drop in MBA applications in the past two years to make his case.
Adds Prafulla Agnihotri, director of IIM-Trichy: "We should be collaborators, not competitors...we (new IIMs) have an equal right to be part of every initiative taken by the IIM brand."

New IIMs are demanding that all institutes operating under the IIM brand should pool resources, share faculty, have joint research programmes, share revenues and be involved in common initiatives such as the CAT preparation process. "We are younger siblings, but intellectually the same," says Agnihotri. Officials at new IIMs say while the ministry is open to most suggestions, the older IIMs are stonewalling collaboration efforts.

For instance, newer IIMs allege that IIM-A is not too keen to share faculty, as such loss of exclusivity will make IIM-A lose its competitive edge, a senior IIM official says on condition of anonymity.

Refuting this, IIM-A Director Samir Barua argues that all IIMs are facing faculty shortage. "After the implementation of the OBC quota, it is difficult to share existing faculty with the new IIMs," he says.

It is the lack of faculty that stopped newer IIMs from participating in the CAT process, not any discrimination, Barua adds. "When their size becomes large enough to spare faculty for the process, they will be included and will also get revenue share."

Unlike the close-knit IITs, each IIM is autonomous and has independence over daily operations.

IIM brand will be hit

However, the administration and overall strategy of all IIMs is overseen by the IIM Council, which is headed by the HRD ministry. Directors of the new institutes say IIM as a brand will be hit in the face of competition from foreign educational institutes if the older ones do not shed their elitist stance. Currently, there are 13 IIMs with a total faculty of 571.

There is a shortage of over 200 teachers who are currently outsourced, according to IIM-Ranchi Director Xavier. Of the total faculty strength, 30% are good teachers while 30% are good researchers, he says.

Besides sharing of resources, new and old IIMs also differ over mentoring and the entire CAT process. When the new IIMs were set up in the past three years, the older ones were asked to mentor them. While IIM-A refused, IIM-Lucknow mentored Rohtak and Kashipur. It outsourced administration to a retired professor, officials said. IIM-Indore mentored Raipur and IIM-Bangalore hand-held Trichy to some extent. But older IIMs have been reluctant to mentor newer ones citing limited resources and faculty.

CAT is another contentious issue. The Common Admission Test is conducted by the IIMs as a pre-requisite for admission to various business management programmes. Prometric, a US-based testing company, conducts the computer-based CAT in India to test quantitative ability, data interpretation, verbal ability and logical reasoning.

The test is conducted every year by one of the older IIMs based on a rotation policy. Each CAT application is charged around Rs 1,600 for the general category and Rs 800 for the SC/ST category. The surplus funds after incurring all expenses are then shared among the older IIMs.

Moreover, older IIMs do not include newer counterparts in the CAT administration process. The new IIMs had put in a request to participate in CAT 2012 during a meeting with Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, which was not seriously considered, officials say.

Officials from the older IIMs, however, say the newer IIMs do not have the faculty strength required to be part of the CAT process. "The newer IIMs are just recruiting faculty and whenever they express interest to participate, they will be included," says Arnab Laha, chairman of IIM-A's admission committee.

Refuting this, IIM-Trichy says their faculty strength would touch 20 by end of 2012. "CAT has nothing to do with faculty, it has been outsourced to Prometric. It makes good sense to include all IIMs," says the director of a new IIM on condition of anonymity.

Moreover, new IIMs were kept out of a July 2012 meeting at Kozhikode to discuss the future road map of CAT (encouraging the entry of non-engineering students at IIMs). Directors of all the older IIMs - Ahmedabad, Calcutta, Bangalore, Kozhikode, Lucknow and Indore - were invited. IIM-Ranchi's Xavier says he was unaware of the meeting and learnt about it through newspaper ads.

Debashis Chatterjee, director of IIM-K, dismisses talks of such a rift. "I think collaboration more than polarisation is the way forward for IIMs. I do not endorse the view that older IIMs are superior to the new IIMs," he says. He, however, defends the current CAT system arguing that revenues will be shared with the new IIMs when their faculty participates.

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